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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24445273">Bless you with love (for the road that you walk)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/vegalocity/pseuds/vegalocity'>vegalocity</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Magi Underground [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Tokyo Mew Mew, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Erasermic is at the end there, Family Feels, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mew Mint is Aizawa's Mom bc same name, Mew Momto and Shouson, Minto is doing her best, The Shirakumo incident is involved, Tired Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead, also the way that man moves he's GOT to have some classical training, badass single mom, like almost exclusively family feels, mostly family feels - Freeform, snippets of growing up, the Erasermic is Not strong but it is present</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-20 06:55:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,871</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24445273</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/vegalocity/pseuds/vegalocity</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When the passion faded and the doctors came back in, explaining that his mother is planned to make a full recovery, Shouta would remember that he wasn't exactly a shoe in to any hero based highschool, that for reasons that were completely out of his hands, his promise could mean nothing and his goal could turn to dust.</p>
<p>But in that moment as Shouta grasped his mother's hand as tightly as he could, for the first time, he spoke about becoming a hero with true passion.</p>
<p>Shouta Aizawa was 12 when a goal in passing became an ambition.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead &amp; Kayama Nemuri | Midnight &amp; Yamada Hizashi | Present Mic, Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead &amp; Shirakumo Oboro &amp; Yamada Hizashi | Present Mic, Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead/Yamada Hizashi | Present Mic, Minto Aizawa | Mew Mint &amp; Shouta Aizawa | Eraserhead</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Magi Underground [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1765513</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Little Bird, Little Bird, fly through my window</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So! starting off my expanded magical underground in BNHA comes a story i've been sitting on for quite awhile. A joke taken to extremes, much like the rest of these have a tendancy to be. </p>
<p>Ironically this as a concept existed BEFORE the rest of the 'The Magi Underground' Minto being Aizawa's mother is an old idea of mine<br/><a href="https://vegalocity.tumblr.com/post/176526008223/did-yall-think-i-was-fucking-joking-in-the-bnha">I actually think it predates the Bakupeach storyline by a little bit</a></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Minto Aizawa had always wanted a child, but never saw the point in the presence of a husband to make it happen,;  Minto Aizawa was one who would often get her way. </p>
<p>It was to not much surprise, then, that on November 7th 2185, at nine fifteen PM Minto Aizawa was rushed into the hospital, followed by a small caravan of friends. With no partner in sight or parents on the phone she was asked to select someone to come into the room with her for moral support. After a quick deliberation Minto shakily pointed to her friend, Ichigo Momomiya. Mrs. Momomiya handed her squirmy infant daughter off to Mr. Masaya Momomiya, and quickly reached over to grab her friend's hand as the contractions picked up again.</p>
<p>Six hours later, at three in the morning on November 8th, her son was born. Ichigo was the first to hold him as the doctors cleaned Minto up, and she noted with a tired laugh that he already had 'the family scowl'. Rather than coming into this world screaming or fussing, the smallest Aizawa merely let out a series of low whimpers and mewls, sounding to the human ear as though he were grumbling his distaste for the outside world already—though Ichigo's cat hearing could pick up a thin whine in the back of his throat, a scream he didn’t know how to let loose yet--His hair was a dark little fluff on the top of his head, more likely to turn out black than the deep blue Minto sported.</p>
<p>When Minto was cleaned of blood, Ichigo handed her back the little baby, gently petting his dark hair.</p>
<p>“I mean, it was quicker than when Berri was born,” was all she had to say on the matter. Minto huffed tiredly and let her grumbling little one rest on her.</p>
<p>“Ms. Aizawa?” One of the doctors interrupted her thoughts. “We're filling out the birth certificate now, did you have a-”</p>
<p>“Shouta.” Somehow the woman could still pull off looking haughty,  covered in sweat, dark circles under her eyes, and carrying a red twitchy baby in her arms. “My first dance instructor was named Shouta--he's the one who introduced me to ballet.”</p>
<p>“Sounds just like what you'd do.” Ichigo playfully prodded Minto's cheek, who gave her friend a glare in return, along with a quiet 'I should have picked Zakuro to come in with me.'</p>
<p>Nonetheless, eventually Ichigo was escorted from the room to give the family of two some privacy, and proceeded to run at top speed back to the rest of their family and announce the good news.</p>
<p>Minto stroked the red, irritated face of her little one, and smiled to herself.</p>
<p>“Welcome to the world, mon petit.”</p><hr/>
<p>Shouta was four when he realized he wasn't like his cousins. He first understood gender was weird when he wondered why adults who weren't Mama or his aunties kept calling him a 'Ladies Man' the year previous. It only when his quirk came in, but his magic didn't follow did he understand that he was... different.</p>
<p>Berri's quirk was just like her mama’s: animal ears. Auntie Ichigo's ears were red and pointy on the top of her head, and when she transformed they turned black like the wildcat she represented. Berri's ears were long and floppy, a rabbit's ears. And less than a day after her ears came in, came a sigil:a little brown mark on the same part of her leg her mama’s sigil was.</p>
<p>The next to get her quirk was Sukia, right when she was born; Aunt Pudding stumbled out of the delivery room with soot in her hair and one of her rat tails on fire--apparently the flames that her own father could breathe had been what had rubbed off onto the infant, and after the incident Tart kicked her out of the room. Sukia's green sigil was written off as a mutative aspect of her quirk, especially once Pudding showed off the matching one on her own forehead.</p>
<p>At that point Ringo and Hime had been born as well--Auntie Lettuce and Auntie Zakuro’s twins. They didn't look alike though, and Mama explained to him that that didn't make them less twins, they were just 'fraternal'. But they got their quirks within days of each other, and it was about two months after Shouta turned four. (the twins themselves were very recently two) Hime's fingernails grew into claws like Auntie Zakuro's when she transformed, but Ringo's quirk only kinda matched Auntie Lettuce's quirk: she could hear and understand bird words. And Shouta was kinda jealous when he found out, since his mom was the bird after all, but sure enough Ringo's collarbone quickly had a bright red sigil on it, and when Hime's quirk followed, her belly sported a black one.</p>
<p>And then there was Shouta. He was quickly turning from four to five and his quirk hadn't quite come in yet. Mama told him not to worry, since she was nearly six before her own quirk came in--he was probably a 'late bloomer' too. He remembered sitting in the doctor’s office drawing a bird and a cat in crayon as the doctor showed mama pictures of his foot bones. Everything was normal, he remembered them saying, it was just foot bones. He wasn't paying much attention, so he didn't know what foot bones had to do with quirks, but the doctor gave him a sticker and told Mama that her theory was probably right.</p>
<p>And three days after that, when a bunch of dumb bullies were trying to kick around a beautiful black kitty he burst three blood vessels in his left eye, his hair standing on end as he spoke with the voice he would only practice when Mama hadn't woken up yet after a long night of alien fighting. His Mew Mew voice. The Bullies' quirk (he could make anything metal into a blade if he's touching it) vanished in an instant. The kitty ran away once Shouta was standing between them and their tormentors, and Shouta's eyes hurt after he told the bullies to leave the cat alone. He'd closed them to rub at them, and was more than a little surprised (and scared) when one of his hands came away bloody.</p>
<p>The bullies ran off, but not before one of them—not the leader, one of his stooges—spat in his direction.</p>
<p>He came home with a blood red eye hastily covered from probing fingers with a patch, a bowl cut performed by a harried teacher desperate to get the gum out from where it had been stuck, and a quirk.</p>
<p>But there was no sigil that came with this quirk, which, according to Berry, was a little splotch of heat that felt kind of like an itch. Every time something came close to her description for the next month, Shouta had ran for the nearest mirror, hiked up his shirt, and did his best to try and find a mark, right between his shoulders just like mama’s.</p>
<p>It never came.</p>
<p>He'd asked Uncle Ryou what that meant, but he hadn't had much of an answer--he'd let Shouta see his own sigil, a little secret that he always hid under turtlenecks or chokers, but Uncle Ryou told him he only had a sigil because he forced it onto himself. And while he did have magic it wasn't near as strong as a proper Mew Mew; all he had was his memory erasing power (which in Shouta's opinion was a very important power indeed).</p>
<p>Mama had asked him if he was sad that his magic didn't come in. Shouta lied and said he didn't really care. She didn't seem too sad after he told her he was alright, in fact, she looked like a weight was taken off her shoulders. Shouta was barely five--he didn't understand. The best he could think of was that Mama liked to stand out, so Shouta not having magic would mean he would stand out in their family.</p>
<p>He wasn't sure if he liked that.</p><hr/>
<p>Shouta was ten when he decided he wanted to be a hero.</p>
<p>It wasn't a grand revelation of any kind, he'd simply been doing his math homework, and decided it. It wasn't much of a big deal at the time as he'd known since his quirk first came in that he couldn't be like his mother—and though he was sad, he knew that his mother would love him even if he couldn't be like her. He could train to dance and take over her studio, but he could never metamorphose and protect the world with his cousins when he grew up. </p>
<p>She'd asked if he was sad back then, and he'd lied to her.</p>
<p>He'd spent the next five years trying to be a dancer, to at least turn the ballet studio his mother loved so much into a family company. He didn't really like ballet, didn't like the idea of performing in front of others, but it helped when the snotty kids at school tried to push him around. As it turned out most school bullies, no matter how rich their parents or how flashy their quirk, would back off if you were quick enough to spin out of the way of their punch and proceed to blacken their eye before they could think to dodge.</p>
<p>Mere days before his revelation, he'd realized that fighting was... kinda fun, and he was good at it; he was good at dodging and traveling around, and... in a way... he'd still be protecting the world. Not alongside his cousins, not filling in his mother's slippers, but he could be doing <i>something</i>. So after the realization that he could be a hero came up, he spent the next hour looking up the minutia surrounding hero agencies, printed out the wikipedia entry on the whole thing, and presented it to his mother.</p>
<p>His mother looked over his research, but she didn't look happy. He was worried for a moment, remembering too late his Aunt Pudding's impassioned ranting about how difficult it'd been to keep their team a secret now that the 'Symbol of Peace' (and ALL of his aunts shared a laugh at that moniker) was operating in Tokyo too. He was prepared to quietly take his reports back and shuffle away until dinner time when his mother finally spoke.</p>
<p>“And you're sure this is what you want to do when you grow up, Shouta? Hero Schools are tricky to get into, even for civilians, let alone people like us.” She looked at him then, and Shouta realized she wasn't happy because she was sad. Very, very, sad. “Your quirk isn't big or flashy, Mon Petit--you're going to need to work twice as hard as your competition, even for the less picky schools.”</p>
<p>“Even UA has general education!” he'd responded, and his mother had smiled, but she still looked so sad.</p>
<p>“They do, don't they? In that case, you'd better be the coolest kid ever at their silly sports festival!”</p>
<p>She ruffled his hair and just like that things were normal again. He grabbed his favorite plushie—a stuffed cat Aunt Ichigo got for his last birthday; they couldn't have a cat, so this was his best option—and sat down to watch cartoons.</p><hr/>
<p>The hospital was sterile and white, the smell of rubbing alcohol and bleach heavy in the air as he sat in an uncomfortable plastic chair. Beside him was his cousin Berri—she was a year older than him, but she was clinging to his arm like a little kid, like SHE was the one who deserved to be hysterical and scared—one eye blackened and a three butterfly bandaids above her right eyebrow.</p>
<p>Two seats away Ringo and Hime clung to eachother; this had been their first time in the field, their first time facing one of their family with a severe injury. Sukia sat in the corner of the room; the youngest of them looked mostly confused, kicking her legs out and lightly thumping them against the leg rests of the chair and reading a kid's adventure magazine.</p>
<p>Across from them, crumpled in waiting chairs instead of <i>comforting their children</i>, were the rest of the family. Aunt Ichigo quietly crying into Uncle Masaya's shoulder, Aunt Pudding sitting calmly with a large shard of glass sticking out from her shoulder as the doctors hustled around, Tart calmly sitting beside her, their hand in Pudding’s. Aunt Lettuce was filling out paperwork for Aunt Pudding—since she couldn't move her writing hand without pain—and Aunt Zakuro was keeping her eyes glued onto their daughters, listening to every one of Hime's quiet cries and Ringo's half hearted comforts, but somehow deciding not to help.</p>
<p>“Are you doing okay?” He felt a hand rest on his shoulder, and sure enough Uncle Ryou had finally made his presence known, sitting on his other side.</p>
<p>“Perfectly peachy,” he spat with as much venom as he could possibly muster. His uncle unfortunately, didn't take offense and leave him alone, and his hand merely dropped away, his gaze turned from neutral to worried. Berri however did pull away from him, a confused whine in her voice.</p>
<p>Whatever. He shrugged out of her grip and curled his legs up to his chest. She had no right to want comfort from him anyway. HIS mom was the one who they were waiting to hear about, HIS mom was the one that got hurt protecting the team. Berri had been hurt in the fight too, but it was barely anything--<i>Aunt Pudding</i> had gotten more hurt than her, and she was perfectly calm waiting for a doctor to be able to dedicate some time to her.</p>
<p>When the doctor came out, he crouched down to Shouta's eye level like he was some scared child. He told him that his mother was stable, she wasn't out of the woods yet, but he could come in and see her if he wanted.</p>
<p>Her dark blue hair had been shorn close to her head around where the stitches were. She'd always taken such pride in her long wavy hair, and now half of it was gone.</p>
<p>Every little boy would grow up believing his own mother was the pinnacle of beauty, but right now, she just looked tired. She was still asleep, her face pale and shadows deep under her eyes. Shouta had little other options beyond pulling one of the only barely more comfortable cushioned chairs up to the side of the bed, sitting down, and taking one of her hands in his own. Her knuckles were bruised and covered in scrapes, and if he hadn't heard through Berri's hysterical sobbing that she'd gotten far too close to an alien and been forced to fight it hand to hand, he'd wonder how on Earth an archer got such a wound.</p>
<p>He pointedly kept his eyes away from the thick, sturdy cast her left leg was wrapped in. For him ballet came in handy--it made him light on his feet and helped him dodge people who thought his quirk is dumb or he's creepy or an alien found out their identities and tried to use him as a hostage. But for his mother, ballet was her lifeblood. She'd lived and breathed the life of the dancer since before she was a Mew Mew, and the idea that her legs—her most valuable asset as a ballerina—could be injured was... horrible. Shouta tried, for just a moment, to imagine how his mother would feel if she had to give up dancing, and quickly banished the thought.</p>
<p>His tear ducts were always uncomfortably dry, but right now his vision was going just a bit blurry.</p>
<p>“It's okay, mom.” He spoke before he even realized what he was saying. “It's gonna be okay. You're gonna get better, and you're gonna heal up and go back to pirouetting around the house, and make that Vishneva lady <i>wish</i> she could be like you.” Shouta blinked, and a pair of tears started to trek down his face.</p>
<p>“And don't worry, even if the doctors say you can't dance anymore, I'll take care of us. I'm gonna be a hero, and I'll buy a big house with a dance studio in it just for you!”</p>
<p>When the passion faded and the doctors came back in, explaining that his mother is planned to make a full recovery, Shouta would remember that he wasn't exactly a shoe in to any hero based highschool, that for reasons that were completely out of his hands, his promise could mean nothing and his goal could turn to dust.</p>
<p>But in that moment as Shouta grasped his mother's hand as tightly as he could, for the first time, he spoke about becoming a hero with true passion.</p>
<p>Shouta Aizawa was 12 when a goal in passing became an ambition.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The Rain's a Part of How Life Goes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The rain will be gone in the morning.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>^_^</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Despite doing just what he'd set out to do--he showed the hell off in his first year sports festival at UA (taking second place and practically guaranteeing his transfer), getting transferred into the hero course almost immediately, and putting himself on the path he'd promised to dedicate himself to--Minto couldn't help but still be worried over her little boy.</p><p>It wasn’t that he was floundering in the new classes--he'd been bringing home a flurry of A minuses and Bs ever since he'd STARTED at UA, and the few bruises and scrapes their school nurse couldn't or wouldn't heal up were hardly anything to imply his classmates were picking on him.</p><p>He just seemed... gloomy.</p><p>Long gone were the days where a little boy would tell his mother anything about his day, (though to be fair, Shouta was always a quiet child, and most days his 'daily report' was along the lines of 'I saw a cat on the way to school') but still, a mother could tell when something was wrong.</p><p>“Mon Petít?”</p><p>“I'm fine.” </p><p>And yet he was slumped over on the bean bag chair sat in the corner of the living room—Pudding's baby shower gift; it was a good place to nap in those early scream filled months and never got beaten up or dirty enough to get rid of—instead of adjourning to his room until dinner. That was the most indication she was going to get that her son did have an issue as their apartment was hardly small—two floors and above the dance studio she owned. Her parents had given her their last investment into her passions when they’d paid the first year’s lease so her teaching could get properly started, snidely saying that at least she wasn't going to WASTE the decades of lessons they'd paid for.</p><p>“Alright, I'll get started on dinner then.” She made sure to sound blithe, taking just an extra moment to fix her hair into her trademark two buns, and strode into their kitchen and started to prepare. She was hardly the best cook, even after living on her own and having Shouta she remained only okay, but if it got the two of them fed then she'd continue to do it.</p><p>It didn't take long before he spoke again.</p><p>“I'm not going to be a good hero.” He was standing in the archway separating the dining nook and the kitchen when he said as much.</p><p>“And why do you say that, Mon Petít?”</p><p>Shouta cringed away from her as she looked up at him, so Minto turned back to the celery she was chopping.</p><p>“I just won't.” </p><p>Something must have happened at school today.</p><p>“Do you want to transfer out?” </p><p>It was a cold response, sure, but his grades were hardly making a dip--the only thing that could shake her son is most days, himself. She'd done her best to not let him feel like he was the black sheep in the family, for becoming a hero due to his lack of magic, but no amount of sharp looks and pointed kicks had kept Ichigo from speculating on what animal he COULD have been, or Pudding putting together that black bat costume 'just in case' back when he was seven.</p><p>“No!” he said far too quickly. Oh, her little boy... “I mean- I should stay in the course if they don't kick me out, right? It makes the most sense.”</p><p>“If they keep you, then you must make an alright hero, hum?”</p><p>“I'm not near as good as Shi-... some of my classmates.”</p><p>'Shi'? How interesting. “Like your friends?”</p><p>Shouta blushed and folded his arms, looking pointedly at the fridge now.</p><p>“I don't have friends, they disappoint me.”</p><p>“Shouta, everyone feels lacking in comparison to their friends. It just shows that you think highly of them.”</p><p>“Don't let Yamada hear that,” he grumbled.</p><p>Ah! There's a name!</p><p>“Invite Yamada and that other person you mentioned over for tea some time. I'd like to meet these friends of yours that have you so befuddled.”</p>
<hr/><p>She didn't want to pat her own back, because for all she knew her little talk with Shouta just put him a little more at ease. But maybe putting voice to the idea that he could talk about his friends around her without prying had helped him in <i>some way,</i> because soon enough he'd been happy again. If you didn't spend much time watching him grow up, you might not be able to tell, heck she was wondering if maybe even some of his cousins wouldn't notice, but she could.</p><p>It was a nice few months.</p><p>Apparently the rainy day she'd talked with him, he'd actually found an abandoned kitten on the way to school. One of his friends (Shirakumo, apparently his hero name was Loud Cloud) had found the little darling after Shouta had only been able to loan it his umbrella, and took it into school with him. That was the trigger for the whole thing, revealed only in pieces through hindsight alone.</p><p>But no good mood could last forever.</p><p>She'd actually heard it on the news before he'd returned home. His Sidekick work with His Purple Highness (and dear god was that a group wide chuckle on the first Sunday tea with the girls that it came up) had gone...terribly. He hadn't been one of the ones hospitalized, and suffered only minor injuries, but that didn't mean he wasn't coming home hurt.</p><p>Minto had blankets ready, the teakettle on, and the studio closed with at least an hour to spare before the door gave a knock.</p><p>A young woman was on the other side, long brown trench coat obscuring her clothes, and a pair of glasses shaped like a mask perched on her nose. Her face was red and splotchy in odd places, and though she didn't look overly exhausted, Minto could see her quick breaths.</p><p>“Mrs. Aizawa?”</p><p>“Come in.” She didn't hesitate to step aside and let the young woman shuffle in. Behind her was a boy who looked just a bit younger, still thin and boney from puberty, clad in dark clothes and yellow hair sopping and floppy from the rain. He only gave her a quick glance and half bow, crooked, fragile smile on his face that she didn't believe for a second.</p><p>And of course, taking up the tail was Shouta.</p><p>Though she'd had the feeling with his friends, when Shouta dazedly stumbled up the last two stairs and into the threshold, the white capture weapon he'd told her of hanging loosely from his neck and black jumpsuit ripped and ruffled, did it become obvious that the lot of them came straight home.</p><p>Shouta flinched when she put her hand on his shoulder to lead him back inside. He wasn't okay with being touched right now, making a slow shuffle to the bean bag chair and pulling his knees up to his chest.</p><p>Though she'd known the basics on the matter she didn't interrupt the young woman—Nemuri Kayama as she'd introduced herself—as she recounted what she could of the fight. Her voice didn't waver until the very end, emphasizing that her Shouta was in fact the one to stop the rampaging villain, saving anyone... else... from getting hurt. Shouta flinched near violently at that and curled tighter into himself.</p><p>The young man—Hizashi Yamada, the friend who'd supposedly thought up Shouta's hero name for him—didn't speak until Nemuri was finished. His voice was surprisingly steady as well, though his seemed to be more from how his voice simply was, granted the shaking of his hands and how he'd had to stop himself twice to scrub at his eyes. He explained that they just... wanted to go home, and Shouta's place was closest. That they knew it was a bit unconventional, but his parents were out of the country, and Nemuri's mother lived all the way in Hokkaido, and maybe, could they stay the night? It was a Saturday, so they didn't have school tomorrow.</p><p>“Frankly, I'm a little insulted that you'd even assume I'd let you both just go home to empty houses!</p><p>Shouta, I'm going to lend Hizashi some of those clothes you never wear. Nemuri sweetie, I think I have some things in your size. Let's get you three out of those wet costumes!”</p><p>The three of them were... well, a bit tough to crack. Hizashi seemed at first okay enough with distractions, to think about something, anything, else. But that was as fragile as the false smile he'd given her at the door, and Minto found herself multiple times that night pulling him onto the balcony outside the kitchen just so he could scream into the open air before pretending things were okay again.</p><p>Nemuri was letting what she could only assume was a nervous tick become a dangerous habit, as simple chewing on the skin around her fingers quickly turned into biting hard into her own flesh simply to do something with her pent up feelings. Even if it was destructive. Minto made sure to use the patterned band aids with Crimson Riot on her hands. After her hands were too protected to destroy, she'd at once decided that she wasn't allowed to be vulnerable in front of the boys now, and Minto had heard her sobbing quietly in the bathroom halfway through the new Looney Tunes movie.</p><p>But Shouta was a rock. He'd sunken into the beanbag chair when he'd arrived, and he only left it to change his clothes under threat of Minto picking him up and carrying him into his room to do it herself, as though he were two and not wanting to take off his cat ear poncho again. He came out in the black t-shirt and grey sweats he had the NERVE to call pajamas, sank back into his seat, and pretended like none of them existed.</p><p>In the end, the kettle with maybe three cups worth of hot water in it had to be refilled twice for both tea and hot cocoa. Hizashi asked if he could bunk with Shouta before they'd even begun to consider sleeping conditions, and Nemuri had fallen into a light doze with her head resting on the arm of the couch.</p><p>She watched as Hizashi carefully untangled himself from the mass of limbs he and Nemuri had eventually sprawled into, and offered his hand to Shouta. Minto could practically <i>see</i> the unspoken conversation passing between the two of them before Shouta reached up and took his hand.</p><p>Their hands stayed clasped as Shouta led Hizashi up the stairs onto the second level of their apartments and vanished down the hall.</p><p>Huh.</p><p>All the same, when she attempted to rearrange Nemuri into a more comfortable position, she'd woken just enough to grasp Minto's sleeve. She didn't have her glasses on, her eyes were hazy with unshed tears, and maybe the room was just warm enough or Minto was the right build or she was still dreaming, but her voice cracked and her grip was desperate.</p><p>“Mom? My friend died today.”</p><p>“I know, sweetie.” Nemuri blinked at her voice, waking up enough to realize she was grabbing the wrong mother.</p><p>“Oh! Uh.. Mrs. Aizawa, I uh...”</p><p>“It's alright Mon Poussin. Right now I'm your Mama. If you ever need anything, our house is probably a quicker commute than Hokkaido.”</p><p>Nemuri's shoulders shook, and she finally gripped onto the front of Minto's shirt and began to sob.</p><p>The poor thing was already so emotionally exhausted, it was barely another ten minutes before she was too tired to keep going. Minto had offered her to sleep somewhere more comfortable, since she had bought her own bed to make sure there was enough room for a certain someone to be able to comfortably climb in, in case he had nightmares.</p><p>Nemuri chuckled weakly but told her she'd be fine.</p><p>When she knocked on the door to her son's room she made sure to give them an extra few seconds before opening the door.</p><p>As it turns out that might have been necessary, since Hizashi had just barely schooled his expression over into neutral politeness. His shoulders were trembling with every breath, and no amount of avoiding eye contact could make her not notice the red irritation around his eyes.</p><p>Shouta had his arm protectively around him as they both sat on Shouta's bed. He didn't meet Minto's eye.</p><p>“You boys need any extra blankets or pillows?”</p><p>“No thanks, mom.”</p><p>“Alright, Hizashi, give a shout if this one punches you in his sleep--he once blackened his cousin's eye at a sleepover.”</p><p>And maybe for the first time that day, she'd heard one of his friends laugh. It was a startled, chirpy thing, his voice quirk acting up with it and making it sound more like a yelp of pain. And channeling every awkward teen before him, including Minto herself at that age, Shouta's face turned red and he grabbed the nearest soft thing—the stuffed cat Zakuro had given him once it became apparent Ichigo's cat nature was quickly making her the favorite aunt—and hurled it at her.</p><p>“GOOD NIGHT MOTHER!”</p><p>Though it was a good shot—ahh her little boy could have supplemented his hero work with a bow if he'd cared to train up his marksmanship—Minto blocked it with ease and began to close the door.</p><p>“Good night boys, Love you, Shouta.”</p>
<hr/><p>He was okay.</p><p>It hurt to think about—it hurt so <i>goddamn much</i> —but he was okay.</p><p>He had to be.</p><p>Nemuri wasn't letting herself fall apart, Hizashi wasn't either. So he had no right to.</p><p>They were all his friends, he was just as close to Hizashi as he was to Shouta. And Hizashi just needed a moment before bed because he'd been putting on that fake 'more rebound than a kickball' act all day, even in front of his mother.</p><p>It was fine--he'd vented, Shouta had been quiet the whole time, and despite it not feeling particularly nice to <i>him</i>, he'd recognized Hizashi's need to be touched, and held his friend as he'd cried. He'd even taken the extra step and suggested they simply share his bed for the night instead of one of them inevitably getting pushed onto the floor.</p><p>Hizashi had been exhausted, too tired to put up much of a fight, and had simply curled against the wall and went to sleep.</p><p>In the positions either of them were in, they were back to back, Shouta facing his room and Hizashi facing the wall. And Shouta found that he couldn't sleep.</p><p>Heat from Hizashi’s body was starting to pool in his upper back, right on his spine, and it was uncomfortable. Hizashi's snoring was nothing like the white noise he'd taken to playing most nights, and every time he closed his eyes he saw...</p><p>
  <i>That</i>
</p><p>The broken walkie talkie, the shattered goggles, the blood stained sheet.</p><p>He stood up as carefully as he could as to not jostle Hizashi, and left his room.</p><p>The pool of heat on his back faded into one spot between his shoulder blades, the sensitive skin—from what he was sure was a bruise that had been lingering until now—getting quickly irritated by his shirt tag and leaving an itchy sensation.</p><p>He wasn't surprised when he opened the door to his mother's bedroom to find her sitting up in bed, side lamp on, as she scribbled down what must have been late night choreography.</p><p>“Come in, Mon Petít.”</p><p>“I'm taller than you now, I think I'm too old for that nickname.”</p><p>“Oh Shouta, you'll be thirty years old and still my sweet little macaroon.”</p><p>He closed the door behind him and sat on the bed, legs crossed, in the empty space his mother wasn't occupying.</p><p>He glanced over at her work, but instead of finding the scribbled notes of her troupe's next project, she was filling out paperwork from that day's business. Wow, did his mother drop the ball. She never forgot to do that right between Shouta getting home from school and starting din-</p><p>Oh.</p><p>The three of them had had her undivided attention from the moment they all stumbled in wet and scared.</p><p>It was difficult for Shouta to cry nowadays. His eyes were so often dry and irritated that tears simply wouldn't form at anything small. And really, he should have been embarrassed that this was the crack that finally broke the dam, but the barely coherent apology from keeping her from her work was the best excuse his body could come up with to get the whole process underway.</p><p>His mother held him through the entire dam bursting--she was so small now, when she used to be so big that he could spend hours sitting in her lap still feeling miserable but all out of tears and just silently take comfort in her being there.</p><p>And now here he was, still feeling miserable but all out of tears, leaned against her shoulder and listening to the gentle scritch-scratch of her pen as she filled out progress reports and paychecks.</p><p>“You never got to meet Shirakumo.”</p><p>“If he was anything like your other friends, I'm sure we would have gotten along swimmingly.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Where the ocean meets the sky</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Epilogue</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“How am I just noticing this?”</p>
<p>“Noticing what?”</p>
<p>“Your birthmark! I guess I mighta thought it was just weird skin pigmentation or something...” He felt Hizashi's calloused fingertips prodding along his spine.</p>
<p>“My... Birthmark?”</p>
<p>“Yeah! It looks like little wings!”</p>
<p>Thank god it was so dark in their bedroom, and that he was already facing away from Hizashi because Holy Shit.</p>
<p>“Right... it's uh... it's genetic, my mother has one on her back too.”</p>
<p>“I see...”</p>
<p>It didn't take long for Hizashi to fall asleep, and when his telltale snores started to fill the room, Shouta carefully extracted himself from the bed and darted to the bathroom.</p>
<p>Sure enough, right there in the mirror, reflected back at him—among various scars and former burns of course—was a little black sigil, right between his shoulder blades. Bird wings, but less rounded than his mothers. More angular.</p>
<p>'Raven' his mind unhelpfully suggested.</p>
<p>Shouta Aizawa was twenty-seven.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>why yes, every single addition to the Magi underground will be titled and chaptered to become a mini playlist which i will only make explicit at the end of the fic</p>
<p>For this one i went with exclusively lullabies granted the content being like 90% family feels. </p>
<p>Title: Sleepsong- Secret Garden<br/>Chapter 1: Little Bird- Elizabeth Mitchell<br/>Chapter 2: Lullaby for a Stormy Night- Vienna Teng<br/>Chapter 3: Song of the Sea- Nolwenn Leroy</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I've been hearing murmurings that we might start delving into Aizawa's childhood soon, so i want to get my own two cents out there first. Initially i was gonna wait until the end of Flooding the sky, but I didn't want to have this sitting in the back of my archive, gathering dust and eventually becoming obsolete.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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